Those lies smear Hillary and Barack. If they were personally smeared --
Hillary or Barack said to be gay in Hill's efforts to court homophobia,
for example -- I wouldn't waste time on the issue. But this is about
Iraq and that's what we cover.

Chris Hill is responsible for what went wrong in Iraq and for where Iraq
is today. He's not solely responsible. Barack's responsible, for
example, for nominating him, for trusting him for far too long and for a
few other things.

Hill betrayed Barack's nomination and trust by doing a half-assed job
and repeatedly lying to the administration about what was taking place
in Iraq.

Hill betrayed Barack. Not the other way around as Hill tries to paint it in his bad essay.

Hill insists that Hillary gave him no support when she was Secretary of
State in 2009, she made one trip to Iraq and she left him alone and
whine, whine, whine.

Hillary wasn't over Iraq.

She might have liked to have been but Barack wasn't going to put her over Iraq.

Two reasons were Samantha Power. She was Barack's advisor when he was
in the Senate and she's had his ear ever since. Power did not want
Hillary in the administration (she can spin that if she wants but she
didn't want Hillary in the administration at all -- however, once the
two had to work together, they did get along -- Hillary can win people
over and Power saw that she had misjudged Hillary and could own that
reality). That's reason one. Reason two, which Power used to ensure
Hillary wasn't in charge of Iraq, was that Hillary supported the Iraq
War at the start. Power said that judgment was fatal to moving forward
in Iraq. (Power herself supported the illegal war -- a fact she's
denied and one that the press, in 2008, was eager to help her bury.)

Power was personally against Hillary and Hillary had supported the war and was notorious for that support.

Those are two reason which carried weight with Barack.

Here's the third:

During my last visit to Iraq in January, I expressed my reservations
about the ability of the Iraqi government, led by Prime Minister Maliki,
to make the tough political decisions necessary for Iraq to resolve its
sectarian divisions. Since my visit, Iraqi leaders have not met their
own political benchmarks to share power, modify the de-Ba'athification
laws, pass an oil law, schedule provincial elections, and amend their
constitution. During his trip to Iraq last week, Senator Carl Levin, the
Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee on which I serve,
confirmed that the Iraqi Government’s failures have reinforced the
widely held view that the Maliki government is nonfunctional and cannot
produce a political settlement, because it is too beholden to religious
and sectarian leaders.I share Senator Levin’s hope that the Iraqi
parliament will replace Prime Minister Maliki with a less divisive and
more unifying figure when it returns in a few weeks.

That statement was released by then-Senator Hillary Clinton in August of 2007.

I happen to agree with her -- and with Carl Levin.

I think history and events since certainly demonstrate how accurate her
publicly expressed hope was -- that the Parliament would vote Nouri out
of office -- it would have been a no-confidence vote (which was
attempted in the spring of 2012 but blocked by the White House via Jalal
Talabani).

But here's was the thing for Barack -- how could Hillary be Secretary of State and interact with Nouri?

She couldn't.

So she was not the lead on Iraq.

That's why she traveled, she had a lot of time to fill. Unlike her predecessor Condi Rice, Hillary was not a lead on Iraq.

She can rightly step away -- to some degree -- from the chaos in Iraq now because she was not a lead on this issue.

Nouri al-Maliki was notoriously paranoid. We explained that here and
how the State Dept had documented it and some wanted to scoff but, years
later, the WikiLeaks Iraq State Dept cables demonstrated we were right
and the term "paranoid" is applied to Nouri in them.

Nouri could not have worked with Hillary in any form because of her statements. The White House knew that and addressed that.

For those late to the party, Nouri al-Maliki was only booted out as
prime minister over the summer. His reign of terror ran from 2006 to
2014.

So for Chris Hill to lie and claim that Hillary wasn't there for him --
his snide remark about her ability to charm included -- is just a pack
of lies. And he was not her nominee.

He was Barack's nominee.

Let's note another liar, CIA contractor Juan Cole. The day after
Hillary issued her statement we noted above -- a week after Carl Levin
made his (Carl's statement was a joint statement with Senator John
Warner) -- Juan 'discovers' a rumor that there is a plot to topple
Nouri. It turns out, Juan insists, Bully Boy Bush wants to get rid of
Nouri.

These lies were then spread by venereal disease carrier Daily Kos which
reposted Juan's 'proof' that Ayad Allawi was going to be the new pm
because -- among other things -- Allawi penned a column for the
Washington Post!

How sinsister!!!!

Juan just makes s**t up -- or maybe follows CIA orders, who knows.

But Bully Boy Bush was not walking away from Nouri and you can say, "Well, C.I., sure, we know that now but back then --"

Back then, we knew it too.

Hillary's statement that we quoted?

A response for Bully Boy Bush's praise of Nouri to the VFW just before
she released her statement. Her statement was in response to Bully Boy
Bush's comments.

Bully Boy Bush: Prime Minister Maliki is a good guy, a good man with a difficult job, and I
support him. And it's not up to politicians in Washington, D.C. to say
whether he will remain in his position -- that is up to the Iraqi people
who now live in a democracy, and not a dictatorship. (Applause.) A free
Iraq is not going to transform the Middle East overnight. But a free Iraq
will be a massive defeat for al Qaeda, it will be an example that provides
hope for millions throughout the Middle East, it will be a friend of the
United States, and it's going to be an important ally in the ideological
struggle of the 21st century. (Applause.)

In his article, Chris wants to paint Barack as disengaged and uninformed.

On some topics, that is true of Barack and his presidency.

But no one was more disengaged from Iraq and uninformed than Chris Hill.

At the start of his presidency, Barack cared a great deal about Iraq
because it was how he won the White House. He wrongly agreed to back
Nouri in 2010 and that was based in part on Samantha Power insisting US
forces would not be able to drawdown at the end of 2011 without the
"stability" (the term she used) Nouri provided the country.

In 2010, Ayad al-Allawi won the elections.

Power felt Allawi as prime minister was a question mark and she noted
his "populist leanings" (again, her term) and how this could be a
problem for the US because Nouri had no desire to represent the Iraqi
people and was more inclined to ignore the will of the Iraqi people.
(Which does sum up his two terms as prime minister, on that Power was
correct.)

Barack ultimately bears responsibility. He is president and he made the decision.

But would he have made it if he received accurate reports?

If the administration received accurate reports, I doubt even Samantha
Power would have backed Nouri. I think she would have smelled the
stench wafting off him and how damaging he could be to her image of
"Never Again!" and argued that Barack shouldn't support him for a second
term.

Chris Hill was unsuited for the job he was nominated to perform.

He did not speak Arabic. He had no knowledge of the Middle East and was an idiot when it came to Iraq.

We covered his confirmation hearing (see the March 25, 2009 snapshot and the March 26th snapshot
) and, despite weeks of briefing, he still didn't understand what was
going on, what the issues were or what the facts were. (He also showed
up at the confirmation hearing with his hair needing to be combed and a
food stain on his shirt. Was he applying for night manager at Denny's
or US Ambassador to Iraq?)